Perth trucking business goes under

Australian Road Express – a Perth-based transport subsidiary of Rivet Group (formerly known as McAleese Group) – has been put into the hands of receivers, leaving 180 jobs at risk.

Rob Kirman, Rob Smith and Anthony Connelly of McGrathNicol were appointed as receivers and managers of ARX Group and Rivet Mining Services East Group, with Andrew Cummins, John Carrello and Peter Krejci of BRI Ferrier Western Australia appointed as voluntary administrators of the two businesses.

Other entities of Rivet Group, including Rivet Mining Services West, which operates at Atlas Iron’s iron ore operations in the Pilbara, are not affected by the appointment of receivers and administrators and are still controlled by Rivet’s directors.

A logistics services business, ARX Group is based in Perth and has depots in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, with 180 employees across the country.

The company was founded in 1991, and was previously known as WA Freight Group.

In a statement, McGrathNicol said as receivers it would take executive control of ARX Group and RMS East.

“The receivers intend to operate the ARX Group and the RMS East Group in the short term while they conduct and urgent appraisal of the business,” it said.

“The objective of the receivers is to work closely with management, personnel, suppliers and customers to keep operations running as smoothly as possible whilst this appraisal takes place.”